Broadcasting organizations such as radio and television broadcasters provide an enormous amount of information to the public. Anyone owning a radio or television receiver can tune into a wide variety of programming any time of the day or night. While some broadcasters offer programming designed to appeal to a large cross-section of people, other broadcasters have become more specialized, such as by offering only news, financial, or sports programming. Even broadcasters who program music range from those that appeal to a wide audience and those whose musical programming is limited to a particular category such as classical, jazz, or alternative. In any case, viewers/listeners have a wide variety of information content available to them from various broadcast sources.
In addition to these more traditional sources of information, the Internet now provides a new and expanding source of information for public access. Although quite different from broadcast sources, the Internet also makes a wide variety of information available to the public. Indeed, the information readily available over the Internet typically far exceeds what is available from broadcasters. The manner in which users obtain this information, however, is quite different from how broadcast information is obtained. In particular, the user generally selects broadcast content in a passive mode by scanning the content being received from different broadcasters, while content from the Internet is generally selected in a more active mode by performing content-based searching. That is, in a passive mode of content selection the user is presented with a sequence of programs such as musical selections over which he or she has no control. The user can only control the content by selecting a different content provider. In contrast, in an active mode of content selection, the user has the ability to select each and every program that is to be received.
Recently, radio and even television broadcasters have been making their content available over the Internet. Among the advantages of this arrangement is that the user can receive programming at any time and is not limited to the particular time at which the program is broadcast. Also, the Internet allows local content to be made available worldwide. Moreover, the user can often search for a particular program, program segment, or musical selection, and thus is not limited to selecting content in a passive manner.
With the convergence of traditional broadcasters and other content providers on the Internet, it would be desirable to get the best features of both passive and active methods of selecting content. For instance, broadcasters select programming for the user, which advantageously provides the user with a range of programming at little effort, but which also prevents the user from receiving programming uniquely tailored to his or her interests. In contrast, while Internet content providers generally do not select programming for the user, they make it relatively easy for the user to search for any particular content he or she desires. Moreover, another aspect of the Internet that can facilitate the provision of appropriate content to a given user is the Internet's capability to monitor the online activity of the user.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a method and apparatus for providing programming such as audio content to a user over the Internet, which is selected either directly by the user or in accordance with the user's interests as determined from the observed online behavior of the user.